Ranch
by YoungYardie
Summary: Aerrow falls into a small fortune that leads him to the heart of Brazil.


Portuguese Ranch

1

Aerrow learned that he had inherited land in Brazil when he was twenty-three years old. When he was twenty-five and injured from his work as DEA on the Mexican border, he emigrated and linked with his long-time friend Finn. Finn had left Florida for Copacabana when he was sixteen, either chasing the first real love of his life or chasing a dream (it was unrealized in both cases) and he spent the rest of those years in Brazil learning the language and passing money from hand to mouth, living on the precipice of being homeless and always having time to go to the beach.

Finn said when Aerrow came to visit him: "There's too much life in the streets to stay off it. I like the beach, I like the nightlife. I'm a half-tourist here; who's going to employ a beach-boy seriously?"

Aerrow replied, "I would." And he went on about the small country that he inherited in Brazil's interior. The "small country" as Finn had a penchant for describing it lived on the edge of domesticated jungle. It was a lot a lot of acres of things green and pasture-like and it came with a handful of men who had punched cows and played traditional music on their gorgeous stringed instruments. The land also came with a house that was well kept for being abandoned.

"They say that an Amerindian lives in there," Finn translated for the men who spoke about the condition of the land. They also marveled at how much Aerrow looked like his father, though he hadn't understood everything they said; he was proficient in Spanish and the parallels between the two tongues helped him decipher the gist of what they said.

"An Amerindian?" Aerrow echoed. He walked into the house.

It was gorgeous! Horizontal with wide rooms and corridors that wrapped the house, the den was literally at its center, an empty room that had the atmosphere of being a communal space, and three bedrooms beyond that, strategically placed away from one another and each with a good angle to the wind and good view of the landlocked landscape.

The Amerindian in question nearly frightened the pair half to death. Finn had actually let out a shrill scream. He was a thin, tall, lanky thing with hair that draped like a horror story and eyes as motionless as one. He had in one hand a tin enamel cup of something hot which was waiting under his long nose. He looked at them more humanly but they remained frozen in the doorway.

" _Lo siento_ ," he said reflexively in Spanish, "I heard that someone was living here, my name is Aerrow."

"You're the new owner of the land," the stranger replied easily in the language. "I thought you were American."

"I am."

"You speak English?"

Aerrow switched. "I do."

The stranger offered his free hand. " _Bienvenidos, amigos_. I am Stork. I've lived here since Lightening Strike passed away."

Aerrow's eyes widened a bit. "You knew my father?"

"In passing. I was a boy when he started his range. You've inherited a small country." He looked over Aerrow's broad shoulder. " _Que pasa a él?"_

Finn straightened himself. "You speak Portuguese?"

Stork replied, "Yes," though he didn't seem to like Finn. His stare lingered.

"I'm happy to meet you, Stork. I can use a man like you to restart my father's ranch, if you want to stay on."

Stork shrugged as if nothing in the world could bother him. "I can be useful." After he showed them the house and betrayed the room he declared to be his, he left the two young men alone and they didn't see him until the following morning.

2

Life on the ranch was tough for all the months that Finn had been working on it. Aerrow had come with money, so starting the breeding stock was not a fight, but now they were all broke and short-handed. Everyone pulled double duty and Finn, who was already tanned, was putting on meat as well.

Stork had once remarked lazily that now he was actually starting to look like a man. He'd said this while perched on a fence he'd been indispensable in constructing and while working his hands over some form of weaving. Finn brushed him off. "Where's Aerrow?"

Stork looked around. A few hours later they found Aerrow with a baby squirrel monkey. That was how Radarr came to be domesticated.

3

"It's bulls' balls," Finn translated and made a face of disgust.

Aerrow laughed raucously. "You were enjoying it until a minute ago!"

Around the fire and under the Milky Way the other cowhands laughed at Finn. But the eclectic diet was growing on the beach-boy as much as Stork was. Stork was still a recluse—even tonight he didn't say much and seemed regressed from the gathering, being closest to Finn leaning away from Aerrow's pet, but it was an improvement that he came out at all, if at the boys' prompting.

One of the men pulled out their guitar and began to sing. Another one got up and began to dance. He kept his arms against his sides and stepped to the beat with his feet as though they were chained.

"It's a bit of _cumbia andina_ ," Stork said softly, almost sentimentally. "It's some Bolivian dance mixed with something else, something a bit more Brazilian. The borders blur in the interior, especially when you're away from the city. Eventually there's no barrier, no language barrier, when people are united by the common goals: food, work, peaceful life…he comes from Chile. Him from Argentina."

Cumbia was a dance that came from the African enslaved, when their feet were shackled and the drums were playing, they moved their feet as far as the chains would allow, and they danced like that, enticing their women. While Aerrow was impressed with the history, Finn went to bed. The loud screaming of night bugs and the distant laughter of Portuguese men and the creaking of the wood as Stork sashayed to his bedroom had become the sounds of home.

A year later the sound of Piper became the sound of home. She was six. Aerrow and Finn were in the city and they chanced upon the orphan they fell in love with. She was a fast learner of the languages of the male dominated household and she easily weaved her way into the hearts of her guardians. On evenings when she fell out with Finn Stork took her to the verandah and they sat in silence. Piper, as a child, taught Finn humility. Aerrow was always impressed by her sway over him.

Piper taught Aerrow how gullible he was. She was a fiend: she lied to him and took advantage of his kindness regularly, though it was commonly for the petty crimes like stealing the last piece of fried chicken or harmless pranks that made him jump out of his skin (in one instance, equipped with a rooster feather, she made him think she was a twelve inch millipede that entered the house.) While the boys laughed at Aerrow's expense, her liberty to lie frightened him. It was a power that she held in reserve as she grew older, having learned that the more she told the truth the more others would believe her when she lied.

Stork never fell for her tricks and seemed, in comparison to the American immigrants, indomitable. And Piper knew better than the mess with him. But even she had managed to steal his heart with her intelligence and courage. She stole into his room and read his books, books that were beyond her years and she was adamant in learning. As he began to read to her, it betrayed his sensitivity. She, with Aerrow, successfully thawed his chilled heart. They became an odd (and a little dysfunctional) family.

Junko was to join them when Piper turned fourteen and began to ask for her own room.

4

Piper never found homosexuality strange and didn't understand the others' gestures whenever Junko and Finn grew intimate. This unconventional education would haunt her during her future friendships with girls.

5

They didn't expect to grow wealthy over the land, Aerrow and Finn did, but they lived well comfortably. They were generous to those who worked the land and the generosity was reciprocated. They were invited to the spots of land the Americans carved up to have for their own where they had parties and roasted pigs and once they were asked to attend a spooky wake. They grew wealthy in their respect for others cultures, their learning of how the rural side of the world worked, the generosity of people, and in watching Piper grow they learned other little nuances of humanity. They were thirty-four now.

Radarr was riding on Piper's shoulders. She was still in her school uniform and carrying her schoolbag in her hand, rolling up her shirt with the other.

"Pull down your shirt," Stork hissed at her in Spanish.

" _El día es demasiado caluroso!"_

"Pull down your shirt," he repeated. "You're too big to be taking off your clothes in the middle of the day like that."

"But I'm not too old to _suffer?"_

"Go to the creek if you're hot. But put down your schoolbag first."

She eventually didn't go to the creek because Junko said that he was riding into town to go to its market. He wanted provisions and fruits that didn't grow on the land. It also seemed like he'd gotten into a tiff with Finn and wanted to get away from the house. Piper went with him, Radarr squealing on her shoulders. Despite himself, Stork took amusement in shrugging when Aerrow walked by and asked, in Portuguese, if he'd seen the squirrel monkey.

Stork was smoking on the verandah staring at the scenery. No-one was really sure how old he was.

The sky was a lovely rosy hue when Junko and Piper and Radarr turned with the truck laden with fruits and vegetables and a girl. Finn was outside to help in a heartbeat when he heard that Lark had arrived. She was a tall bubbly beauty, blonde and eloquent, and seemed to look at Piper with adoration. Junko invited her when she said that she owned neighboring land inherited from her grandmother. Radarr happily stayed away from her.

Stork regressed into silence over dinner. Lark stole the show, going on with her amazing stories and her infectious laughter. She was a frequent visitor of New York and heard that her grandmother's land was about to be liquidated, so she came down to investigate. "Of course the country isn't an easy place to live in," she said, "I'm totally impressed with all of you for raising such a lady. Piper has stolen my heart."

Piper spoke with Lark like she was her equal. "Lark's a flight attendant. She's writing her exams to be a commercial pilot!"

"I'm writing it sure, but I'm not confident I'll pass. I think that Piper would blow away those exams—she's got a real knack for numbers. She was calculating everything in her head! You've got a genius on your shoulders here, boys."

Stork said for the first time that evening, "That's not news to us."

Piper looked at Stork soberly. That night she slept in the communal area with Finn, Aerrow and Radarr. Stork was under the stars and Junko in bed.

"Lark says that she's willing to take me to Brasilia," Piper said into the dark. "She's interested in me attending a college there. I'm a little young to go straight into college, but there's an academy, she said, that can act as an intermediary…"

"We'll think about college when you're seventeen, Pipes," Finn remarked in the darkness.

His voice made her heart thunder. She thought he was sleeping and the dismissive tone made her riot: "I don't want to go to school here anymore, Finn. It's boring!"

"Don't raise your voice at him, Piper."

She quieted at his sternness. "Aerrow, this is an _opportunity_. I don't get this every day."

"I think we need to think about this a little more." Aerrow tried to reason with her. "Look at it from our perspective. We're your guardians and we hardly know Lark. She seems like a nice person, but Piper…"

" _I_ know her," Piper insisted and Finn rolled his eyes. "I feel like I've known her all my _life_. We've connected, I can feel it, we're on the same wavelength."

"Did you see _el chupacabra_ too?"

"Don't antagonize her, Finn."

"C'mon Aerrow, you know she's talking shit. Wavelength? Are you serious? If you want to leave us and the ranch so bad then just say so Pipes. Don't come up with bullshit like that."

Piper disturbed Radarr roughly from his perch between herself and Aerrow as she got up and stomped to the foyer at the front of the house. Despite Aerrow calling out to her, the grill slammed shut loudly. It seemed to echo against the wood of the nearby jungle. Finn, in her wake, was obstinately silent.

Junko materialized from the bedrooms. "What's going on?"

"Piper's throwing a fit."

"Be quiet, Finn," Aerrow growled. "You're just saying that because you're as hurt as any of us."

"I think I _reserve the right_ to be hurt! We take her in, we raise her, we love her, and she wants to pack up and leave just because some pretty girl thinks she's smart? Heck, I haven't seen a girl in a long time either but I don't want to tear this family to pieces!"

"It's her own life to live it as she chooses," Junko said softly as though reading from a holy book.

"She's fourteen, Junko. _Fourteen_. She can't fucking choose shit when it regards her future!"

"I think we should be celebrating that she's fighting against us because she wants to go to college," Aerrow sighed and brushed the ruffled fur of Radarr. "It could be worse. It could have been drugs."

In the dark damp of tropical midnight Piper stared at the cows over the fence. One of the boys had been recently neutered and he was as a result sedated. He looked at her with empty, bothered black eyes and bowed his head to sleep. Piper blew her nose in her shirt because she was crying.

"I know why you want to leave," Stork said, joining her.

She turned her head away from him, embarrassed. Her sniffing and wiping was noisy. She woke up a nearby sow.

"I know that you're too smart for school here."

"I want to go to Brasilia and go to college. Finn says I should wait three years."

"Finn's taking your interests into consideration."

"He's a hypocrite. He doesn't care about me."

Stork didn't bother point out her obvious lie. Her posture indicated that she knew that was a lie.

"You also like Aerrow don't you?"

She looked at him in shock.

"Don't look at me like that, _querida_. Don't forget who I am, as the man who raised you."

"I don't like Aerrow."

"Well you certainly don't like Lark, as much as you are tricking yourself into liking her. She's suspicious." He wouldn't ask her to admit it. Her posture didn't change: she knew.

"I want to go to Brasilia, Stork."

"That's fine," Stork said. "I will take you to Brasilia."

And he did.

6

Piper and Stork were in Brasilia for a year. Finn caught Aerrow daydreaming often.

"Don't worry, buddy, she'll be back in a few weeks."

Finn realized that Aerrow didn't hear him. Funnily enough, Radarr seemed to shrug.

7

Junko took up a book on Confucianism. He had Finn half-naked resting his head on his lap dozing in the pale light. They could hear the radio from the communal room in the middle of the house. Finn stirred and his hair tickled the skin on Junko's inner thigh. Junko paused in the middle of the engaging story of Chinese politics and reviving culture. Delicately he patted Finn's head. There was no response and he went back to reading.

8

The garden outside of the ranch house was tilled frequently by the men according to the season. It was provisional stuff, yams, tomatoes, and it was peppered by chickens that Radarr took joy in harassing. Aerrow was elbows deep in the red earth wrestling tubers. He ignored Finn's quip about him looking like an old man under the weathered straw hat.

Aerrow began muttering.

Junko was also looking over Aerrow's work, but the fellow was clever. He was doing so from the shade. He was singing a lonely song to a weird beat and was still singing even as he exhaled a sharp smelling cloud.

Finn wrinkled his nose. In Portuguese, "That's not tobacco."

"It's marijuana."

" _What?_ Where did you get marijuana?"

"They sell it in town. I don't smoke it often, for Aerrow's sake, though I take the risk when I'm downwind of him."

Finn recalled in that moment that Aerrow had borne witness to thousands of millions of dollars' worth of pot to last a dozen lifetimes. Another whiff, another hint, and he'd probably go mad.

The wind changed and they gauged his reaction. He looked up and frowned at them in the shadows, his bright, bright eyes barely making out their forms in the sunlight. "Is that weed?" he immediately asked.

They nodded. Aerrow, to their shock, made his way over to them and took a draw.

9

Piper returned home a woman and Stork with his hair combed. Their transformations surprised the ranch. Stork still glowered, he still had a hunched way of walking, but he looked the part of a man who'd visited the city and bought some new shirts and some new shoes and a trip to the hair dressers. And Piper, wow, Piper was all filled out jeans' bottoms and styled hair and blossoming smiles. She was a little taller, a little thinner—she didn't have the thick diet to keep her stocky.

They'd received the occasional e-mail from either Stork or Piper, but they were rarely accompanied by images. The transformation floored the family they returned to meet. In contrast the men were sunburnt, fit from working each day, patient from the quiet country life, and each of them had fertile dirt under their nails.

Piper was unabashed. She hugged each of them, never mind the dirt that dusted her breasts. She'd developed a twang: "You know I saw Lark in the city? It's the funniest thing. She's a cartel."

10

Stork liked the smell of the nearby jungle and the heat that was coming off the grass. It was smells he missed. He remembered, as he drank in the familiar nightlife, some of his surrogate daughter's words to him: "Sometimes I think that I want to get into the city so that I can outgrow my crush on Aerrow, but other times I think it's because I got infected with how Lark looked and sounded. She sounded so forward thinking, so futuristic, and I felt like a grubby black schoolgirl from the country. I thought if I couldn't do anything about my skin I could change something about my education or something…"

"If you change who you are I don't think you will be happy," Stork had replied.

"You think so too? That's a relief."

Piper was a weird thinker during that year she spent in the city. But it calmed her. She was sixteen and happy to be home now, and she was pulling her weight with the cattle and the garden and the trips to the city to sell and buy and the old lifestyle was only periodically interrupted by her recollection of a story from the city or a remark from Finn or Junko about her height or hair. Aerrow, curiously, avoided talking about the changes in Piper. Stork would later discern that he didn't like the idea of Piper growing up and leaving the ranch for good. But this was never overtly said.

11

I.J. Domiwick was an archeologist that Piper adored from the magazines she read in Brasilia, and he was looking for the ruins of a fallen indigenous kingdom in the center of the jungle. He came to the ranch looking for a guide and was mutually flattered by Piper's adoration and the unforgiving glares of her guardians from the porch.

"Whatever he finds he'll ferry off to London or Germany where it will be on permanent display," Stork groused. "People like him can't leave the ancients alone, even in death."

Piper didn't agree, of course, but each one of them hated him for a different reason. Aerrow didn't want him on the ranch; Junko felt that he was a spiritually corrupt individual; and Finn hated the flamboyancy. It was a whole other piece of local drama to become local lore when he was found to have gone bankrupt and sick, though by then he'd overstayed him welcome and even Piper had voiced, "Good riddance."

12

Finn picked up the guitar.

He practiced with the Chileans in the outdoors occasionally, and over the years he picked up a few songs successfully. Their family was assembled with fire and drinks in celebration of another good year. From the town dim fireworks took to the air at midnight, and Finn's strumming seemed oddly discordant with the festivities. But no-one told him to stop (though Stork cringed.)

Junko asked of Stork how old he was and the Amerindian smiled. When he told them the truth as he knew it, his family looked at him oddly and with disbelief. He was the same age as Lightening Strike.


End file.
